Jha'Quan
Jackson.
Jha'Quan
Jackson.
Tulane· 5'9"· 188 lb· 4.42s 40
"A five-year field-flipper whose value was always the fifth phase: sixth-round money for a returner who could take the top off a coverage unit, with the offensive snaps treated as upside rather than plan."Pre-draft read
Jackson was Tulane's designated field-flipper: a 5-9, 188-pound slot and off-ball Z who lived on motion, screens and vertical stems from a stacked alignment. His release package was built on foot speed rather than physical release counters — he ran a 4.42 and used it to stack corners on posts and go-balls, then finished with late hands on the deep ball.
The secondary trait was return work. He handled both punts and kickoffs for five years, tracking the ball cleanly and hitting the crease in a single decisive cut. In the pass game he was a run-after-catch weapon on tunnel screens and jet sweeps, but the signature was explosive-play rate: a 16.0-yard career average on 109 grabs at a program that asked him to be the strike, not the volume.
Motion-heavy spread passing game that manufactures touches — jet sweeps, tunnel screens and play-action shots off stacked alignments — paired with a special-teams coordinator who wants a full-time punt and kickoff returner.
Year 1: primary punt/kick returner and WR5 who takes 8-12 manufactured offensive snaps a game. Ceiling: a Ray-Ray McCloud type who holds both return jobs for years while working as a gadget/vertical change-up.
A condensed, 12-personnel play-action offense that asks receivers to win contested catches on the boundary against press man and block in-line on duo runs — there is no manufactured-touch menu there and his frame gets erased.
His value is tied to the return job; an offense with an established returner on the roster removes most of the reason to keep him.
87-yard touchdown vs USC (2022)
The signature explosive play: Jackson stacks the corner and finishes over the shoulder for 87 yards in the Cotton Bowl season.
Tulane touchdown run into the record books
Manufactured-touch speed on display, showing the one-cut acceleration that made him a return threat.
Titans rookie camp reps
Rookie-year joint practice work in Tennessee, where he won the return job as a sixth-round pick.
A five-year Tulane starter and one of the more experienced special-teams weapons in the class, Jackson entered the 2024 draft as a slot-only receiver whose value was tied to speed and return equity rather than route-tree breadth.
The production profile was spiky by design. He never cleared 35 catches in a season, peaking at 33 for 554 yards in the 2022 Cotton Bowl team and adding 26 for 439 with four scores in an injury-shortened 2023, but he averaged 16.0 yards a catch across 56 games and hit the 87-yard touchdown against USC that became his calling card. He also returned punts and kicks throughout, including a return score in 2022. The flags were size, contested-catch volume and a route tree that rarely tested him underneath against press.
Boards had him as a late Day 3 special-teams specialist with WR5 upside, and Tennessee took him at 182 with returns as the primary job description. Given the market for return men, the pick was rational: pay a sixth for the fifth phase and let the offense be a bonus.
- 01
Long speed
a 4.42 runner who stacked corners on vertical stems and produced a 16.0-yard career average on 109 receptions at Tulane.
- 02
Return experience
handled both punt and kickoff duties across five college seasons, including a punt-return touchdown in 2022.
- 03
Ball tracking
natural over-the-shoulder adjustment on deep shots, highlighted by the 87-yard touchdown against USC in the Cotton Bowl season.
- 04
Yards after catch
decisive one-cut runner on tunnel screens and jet sweeps who converted small creases into explosive gains.
- 05
Experience and availability
56 career games in a program that trusted him in three phases, with no character or maturity questions attached.
- 01
Frame
5-9, 188 pounds with a small catch radius and little function against press-heavy corners who can reroute him at the line.
- 02
Contested work
rarely won through contact and lacked the play strength to finish through a defender's hands in traffic.
- 03
Route tree
a stem-and-go menu built on speed, with limited nuance in option and intermediate breaks against zone.
- 04
Volume production
never exceeded 33 catches in a season, so the film sample of him working a full route tree was thin.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.42sp50
- Vertical
- 32inp50
- Broad jump
- 118inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 12repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Tulane | 8 | 2 | 31 | 1 |
| 2020 | Tulane | 12 | 31 | 425 | 8 |
| 2021 | Tulane | 12 | 17 | 294 | 1 |
| 2022 | Tulane | 14 | 33 | 554 | 3 |
| 2023 | Tulane | 10 | 26 | 439 | 4 |
| Career | — | 56 | 109 | 1743 | 17 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Undersized speed returner whose roster value rises and falls with return production, not targets.
The realistic ceiling: a decade-long return specialist who carved out steady gadget snaps on offense.
Small-slot returner who bounces between rosters and practice squads once the returns flatten out.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Jackson made the Titans' 2024 roster as a rookie and did exactly the job he was drafted for: 12 games, 28 punt returns for 215 yards and 16 kickoff returns for 412, with the offense limited to one catch for eight yards on three targets. He was competent, never dangerous — no return longer than 34 yards and no scores — which for a specialist is the difference between a job and a career. Tennessee waived him during the 2025 cutdown, he passed through to a practice-squad stint in New Orleans, and he signed with Houston in May 2026 as camp depth and return competition.
In hindsight the pick is a fair sixth-round outcome rather than a miss. Jackson gave a rookie season of real special-teams snaps at rookie salary, which is the entire point of that range, but he never built the receiving floor that keeps a returner employed past his first contract. The lesson is the familiar one for small-slot return specialists: without a defined offensive role, one below-average return season is enough to lose the roster spot.